Pauper's Gold (27 page)

Bessie smiled. ‘Where are you living?’

‘Nowhere yet. That’s me next job. Find lodgings.’

Bessie’s face lit up. ‘Then you’ve found ’em, love. You can stay here and I won’t take no for an answer.’

Now it was Hannah’s eyes that filled with tears. ‘Oh, Auntie Bessie, I’d love to,’ she cried and, hugging her, Hannah felt as if she had come home.

With her husband and one of her boys dead and the rest of her family gone, Bessie’s only source of income was to take in washing. But those who lived nearby were ashard up as she was and the work was spasmodic.

‘We’re doing each other a favour,’ she assured Hannah. ‘If you get a job and pay me a bit of board each week, you’ll be saving me from the workhouse.’

Hannah’s eyes widened in disbelief, but Bessie nodded, ‘You will, I tell you, you will. The lads send me money now and again, but it’s not fair to expect it.’ She laughed
suddenly. ‘You don’t see the chick scratching for the old hen, do you?’

Hannah put her arms around her and murmured, ‘I’ll scratch for you, Auntie Bessie, just like I’d’ve done for me mam, if only . . . if only . . .’

Bessie hugged her close. ‘Aye, love, I know. I know.’

Hannah settled in quickly with Bessie Morgan. For the first few weeks they decided she should not go in search of work.

‘You keep your head down, just for a week or two. There’ll be time enough for you to look for a job after Christmas. In the meantime, you can help me with the washing and ironing. I
reckon everyone’s decided to have their sheets and blankets washed for Christmas. I’ve even got three pairs of curtains, would you believe? I don’t know where all the work’s
coming from all of a sudden. I really need your help, Hannah. You couldn’t have turned up at a better time.’

‘What about Mrs Harris? You . . . you don’t think she’ll report me to Mr Goodbody, do you?’

‘Not if she knows what’s good for her,’ Bessie said grimly. ‘Don’t you fret, love. I’ll have a word with her. Make sure she keeps that runaway mouth of hers
tight shut, else she’ll have me to reckon with.’

Hannah smiled, suddenly feeling a lot safer. She wasn’t sure whether Bessie was telling the truth about needing her help, but she worked hard alongside the older woman over the copper and
the tub in the wash house in the back yard. At night, when Bessie put her swollen legs up, Hannah tackled all the ironing. The next day, she tramped the streets to return the fresh laundry and
collect more work.

It was on a cold January morning, when she walked to the very end of Bridge Road, turned left into Chestergate and continued out onto the Prestbury Road, that she saw the workhouse. She stood
before the main entrance, looking up at the imposing stone building, at the plaque above the door bearing the date that building began – 1843 – and up again to the clock tower and the
weather vane on the very top. Then her glance took in the numerous windows and the tall chimneys. Hannah shuddered. She remembered this place all too well.

She wondered if the Goodbodys were still there and asked herself if she dared to knock on the door and ask for the truth about her mother. Hannah bit her lip and turned away, her eyes filling
with tears. Though she longed to find out about her mother, it was too big a risk.

*

‘What’s the matter, love?’ Bessie asked. Hannah had hardly said a word since her return from taking and fetching the laundry and now she was picking at her supper with little
or no appetite. ‘Are you poorly?’

Tears spilled down Hannah’s face.

‘Aw, love, what is it?’ Bessie was round the table in a trice and enfolding the girl in her loving embrace.

‘I . . . I saw the workhouse today and . . . and it brought all the memories about Mam back. I know they said she was dead, but was it true? Perhaps it was another lie.’ She lifted
her tear-streaked face. ‘Auntie Bessie, what if she’s still in there?’

‘Well, we’ll go and ask, but don’t get your hopes up, love, will you? Because, to be honest, if your mam was still alive I reckon she’d’ve got in touch with you
somehow. I can’t believe she’d let nearly four years go by without a word.’

‘But they stopped my letters.’

‘Aye, I know. You told me,’ Bessie said grimly.

‘You see,’ Hannah said, ‘I want to find out the truth but I daren’t go to the workhouse in case Mr Goodbody’s still there. He’d have me sent back to the
mill. I know he would.’

Bessie beamed suddenly. ‘Then leave it with me, love. I’ve nothing to fear of that place – only of having to go in it to stay. But not now. Not now you’re here. So
I’ll find out about your mam for you.’

‘But . . . but what will you say? Won’t he suspect I’m with you? He might already have heard from Mr Edmund that I’ve run away.’

Bessie frowned thoughtfully. ‘Aye, well, I won’t mention you . . .’ she began, but then a gleam came into her eyes. ‘Tell you what – it might be better if I
did
mention you.’

Fear crossed Hannah’s face. ‘Oh, Auntie Bessie, please don’t—’

‘No, no, love, listen a minute. If I go to Goodbody and ask where your mam
and you
are, then he won’t suspect I’ve seen you, will he? I’ll just say I’m
trying to find out about my old friends.’ Her face was suddenly sad. ‘It broke my heart the day you left to go into that place, Hannah, but there was nothing we could do.
We’d’ve helped you if we could’ve done. We ’adn’t the room to take you in here.’

‘I know, Auntie Bessie, I know you’d’ve helped if you could’ve. But,’ she went on, coming back to the idea of Bessie visiting the workhouse, ‘what if the
master asks you outright if you’ve seen me?’

Bessie looked her straight in the face and said, ‘I’ll say I haven’t set eyes on you from the day you left our street to enter the workhouse.’ Suddenly she beamed,
‘I’ll just not add, “until now”.’

Hannah’s mouth twitched, she smiled and then she laughed out loud. ‘Oh, Auntie Bessie!’ And then suddenly, out of the past came the phrase that her gran had used fondly when
speaking of Bessie Morgan. ‘Oh, Auntie Bessie, you’re a caution, you are.’

But the following day, when Bessie put on her best hat and coat and set off for the workhouse, Hannah was on tenterhooks. She couldn’t settle and paced about the house
like a caged animal. At last, with nothing to occupy her, Hannah picked up a parcel of clean laundry and set off to deliver it.

As she retraced her steps to the terraced house she now called home, Hannah paused again outside the school. She wondered if there were any of the teachers there who would still remember her.
She almost stepped into the building, but then turned and hurried away, realizing that the more people who knew she was back here, the more chance there was of Goodbody finding out about her. And
then . . .

Hannah bent her head and hurried home.

‘There you are.’ Auntie Bessie was at the door, looking anxiously up and down the street. ‘You had me worried.’

‘Oh, sorry, Auntie Bessie, but I was that restless after you’d gone. I just had to get out for a bit. I’ve delivered Mrs Brown’s laundry.’

Bessie nodded. ‘That’s all right then. Now come on in and we’ll have a nice cup of tea and I’ll tell you all about it. I’m parched, I am. It’s me one bit of
luxury. Tea.’

Hannah laughed. ‘We only got given it in the apprentice house if we were ill.’

Bessie chuckled. ‘Well, I hope you didn’t get it very often then.’

Hannah had to hold in her impatience for Bessie’s news just a little longer, until the older woman had lowered herself into her chair and drunk half her cup of tea. ‘There,
that’s better.’

‘Did you see Mr Goodbody? Did he ask about me?’

Bessie shook her head. ‘I didn’t see him, but I saw his wife.’

Hannah pulled in a startled breath. ‘Oh! Oh dear!’

But Bessie was smiling and leaning towards her. ‘I’ll tell you something, Hannah. She’s far more frightened of you than you are of them.’

‘Eh?’ Now Hannah was mystified.

Bessie sat back and said triumphantly, ‘She was real jittery when I asked about you and your mother.’

Hannah shook her head wonderingly. ‘Why? Why ever should she be frightened about me?’

‘Because they lied to you, didn’t they? Kept you thinking your mother was still alive and well and writing to you? I expect if you were to ask your policeman friend about that, you
might find that it was against the law in some way. I don’t know what they’d call it, but I’d call it criminal, wouldn’t you?’

‘I suppose so.’ Hannah was doubtful. She’d lived her whole life under the rule of others and she couldn’t imagine having any power over anyone else. Others wielded the
power in Hannah Francis’s world – not her. But a tiny sliver of determination and hope began to grow. ‘What did she say, Auntie Bessie?’

‘Well, when I got there I asked the porter if I could see Mr Goodbody, and he said he was away, but would I like to see Mrs Goodbody. “She’s the matron,” he said.
“She can admit folks when the master’s away.” ’ Bessie sniffed. ‘Likely he thought I was wanting to go in to stay.’ She paused a moment, reflecting how close at
times she’d come to having to do just that.

‘And did you see her?’ Hannah prompted.

Bessie nodded. ‘Oh, I saw her all right. She soon came off her high horse when she realized I wasn’t another pauper at her gate. And when I said I was inquiring after my old friend,
Rebecca Francis, and her daughter, Hannah, she went white.’

Hannah’s mouth dropped open. Bessie nodded, ‘Oh yes, believe me, Hannah, she went white. She’s frightened of her part in the deception coming out, I could tell. I don’t
reckon you’ve much to fear from her.’

‘Maybe not,’ Hannah murmured, finding her voice through her surprise. ‘But that’s not him, is it?’

‘True, but I don’t reckon they’ve heard about you running away. She told me that Rebecca died only a few months after you were sent to the mill. That seemed genuine, but then
she seemed to get nervous. Just said that as far as she knew you were still there. When I pressed her and asked if she’d sent word to you that your mother’d died that was when she went
white and began to stutter. “My husband deals with all that sort of thing,” she said.’ Bessie laughed aloud. ‘Oh, Hannah, I couldn’t resist it, I said,
“I’d’ve thought that you being the matron, like, that it’d’ve been your job to let the poor girl know.”’ Bessie rocked with laughter until the tears ran
down her cheeks. ‘Oh no, no, she said. That was her husband’s job. She was quick to put the blame on his shoulders, I can tell you.’ Bessie wiped her eyes. ‘Anyway, love, as
I was coming out, this young woman comes running after me across the yard. She said she’d heard I was asking after Hannah Francis and her mother. Goodness only knows how she knew.’

Though she now had to accept that her mother was truly gone, it was no great shock. Deep inside, she’d known it to be the truth. ‘News travels fast in there,’ she said with a
small smile. ‘I reckon the inmates know what’s happening even before the master does. Go on, Auntie Bessie.’

‘This girl said she’d known you at the mill and that the last time she’d seen you, you’d been fine but that you’d been anxious about your mother as you’d
never heard from her. She said she’d written to you herself after she heard in the workhouse that your mother had died. But she didn’t know if the letter had ever reached you as
you’d never replied.’

‘No, it didn’t,’ Hannah said grimly.

‘Doesn’t surprise me,’ Bessie said. ‘I expect with their little scam going on between Goodbody and this Critchlow fellow, they intercepted
any
letters addressed to
you.’

‘Mmm,’ Hannah frowned. ‘I wish I knew who’d really done that. I can’t believe it of old man Critchlow. He seemed so nice . . .’

Bessie snorted. ‘Huh! They all do, until it comes down to money. You were money to them, love. The Critchlows likely paid Goodbody a handsome sum to apprentice you for the pittance it cost
them to keep you. Neither of them would want to lose it.’

Hannah was silent for a moment, then she asked curiously, ‘Who was the young woman who said she knew me?’

‘Nell Hudson.’

‘Nell!’ Hannah stared at Bessie. ‘Nell is in the workhouse?’

And when Bessie nodded, Hannah breathed, ‘Oh no! Not Nell. Oh, Auntie Bessie!’ She clasped Bessie’s hand across the table. ‘I have to get her out of there. I just have
to.’

‘But I don’t know what you can do,’ Bessie said, though her eyes were full of sympathy for the girl. ‘You haven’t got a job yet
yourself.’

‘I will do and I won’t be long about it.’

Bessie smiled at the young girl’s confidence, marvelling at her determination, her resilience after all the cruel blows that life had dealt her. ‘No, love, I’m sure you
won’t. You’re young and strong and willing, and anybody’d be a fool not to employ you, but – but you can’t expect to support a household of four on a woman’s
wage. Your friend could come here and with pleasure, but—’

‘Four? What do you mean – four?’

‘Didn’t you know? Your friend Nell has got a baby. A little boy. He’s about a month old.’

Hannah stared at her for a moment and then nodded slowly. ‘Yes, yes, it all fits now. No wonder Mrs Bramwell wouldn’t tell me why she’d gone away.’ Her eyes filled with
tears as she remembered. ‘And why Nell was so short with me the very last time she spoke. She must’ve known, must’ve realized what they’d do. Oh, poor, poor Nell. But I
wonder who—?’ Then shook herself. ‘No time for that now. I have to think of a way to get her out.’ She looked Bessie straight in the eyes as she asked, ‘So, if we
could get enough money to support ourselves, you’d have her here? As another lodger? Her and her baby?’

‘Oh yes.’ Bessie smiled without hesitation. ‘It’d be lovely to have a little one about the place again.’

‘And supposing, just supposing that both Nell and me could get work, would you . . . would you look after her child?’

Bessie’s eyes sparkled. ‘Oh, I would. I would.’ And the lonely woman clasped her hands together in thankfulness, blessing the day the young constable had helped Hannah find her
old neighbour.

The very next day, Hannah tramped the streets looking for work but she returned home at night disappointed and dispirited.